Team Gai: Parents
by niver
Summary: A threeshot collection that investigates the parents of Team Gai we've never heard of. /no pairings/
1. Lee

**Team Gai: Parents**

**Lee**

Lee's parents were dead.

Or at least, that was the official story. However Gai knew and Tenten knew, and Neji knew, and most people knew that they were not. They had simply abandoned Lee as a child and moved to the gambling capital of the Fire country, leaving him at the official Orphanage (a collection of rooms where kids could come and go with a bare amount of adult supervision and food) with a piece of paper with a single name printed on it: 'Rock Lee'.

Everyone knew that Lee thought that his parents were dead.

No one was quite sure why this was. Maybe no one had told him. Maybe he was just oblivious. Or maybe he chose to be oblivious. It would hurt, thinking that your parents did not want you. That they found it fit to leave you behind, because as civilians they found things getting too hot around the collar, with all the pressures to become a ninja and fight tailed beasts and skilled enemies. That you had cowards and gamblers and pleasure seekers for parents.

Lee knew.

He had always known. No one at the Orphanage had seen reason to lie to him. Most orphans were either adopted and made into ninja, or stayed alone and became ninja anyway. Why lie? They were destined for a harsh life either way. So the moment he was old enough to comprehend, they told him that his mother was an alcoholic (no wonder the drunken fist came so naturally to him) and that his father lost money and gained money like a bipolar man switched moods.

Sometimes when he was younger, Lee imagined that reputations like that were enough to tell him they were already dead. He would quickly chastise himself after these wayward thoughts – _Optimism is key! _– but then again, he had never bothered to look for them either.

His parents were the exact opposite of what Lee was. And he was proud of this. While his parents backed down, ran away, were meek, afraid, he would never back down or run away. He would always stand tall and proud and strong and fight through his fears. In a way, his parents were his motivation, the fire under his rear. Lee never, ever, _ever_ wanted to become his parents.

That was why he never told anyone he knew. Not because it was easier to have people avoid the subject around him, but because they were his private concerns. Family meant little to Lee, but strength meant quite a lot. He would face his problems on his own, not go whining around. Not abandoning his problems on other people to solve, just like what his parents did with him.

Even with his situation, Lee had never wanted a family to take him in. He had parents. They were terrible, yes. But they were his parents. His motivation. He lost his right to that if he found a new family.

Still, family seemed to sneak up on him, in a way.

In that vein, Team Gai was quite possibly the best thing that could ever happen to him. Not that Lee ever thought of their team as a family. No, that would be wrong.

Neji was most certainly not like a brother to him. The same for Tenten as a sister. And he had always, always thought of Gai-sensei as his mentor, his friend, his life compass, his hero, but _never _as his father. Lee had a father, and Gai-sensei was a zillion times better than that man.

So Team Gai was not a family to Lee, but they were a unit, and they did care for each other – even if Neji was too uptight to admit it, and Tenten too much of a tomboy for emotional stuff. Lee once made the mistake of telling Gai-sensei that he viewed their little team as something tight-knit and wonderful. Both Neji and Tenten could not look at anyone for weeks afterward without looking embarrassed, since Gai-sensei had all but shouted Lee's confession in public.

Despite all this, Lee knew that he had it good. In fact, what he had was better than parents. Much better.

**TBC**

**A/N: Hey guys, this is just something I had lying around, and I thought I'd post it up to get it out of the way. Now it's one less story plaguing my mind, and I can focus better on Thumbtack, and the backstory oneshot for HFoC. It's completed, so don't worry about me not finishing it, but I will stagger the updates a little because I feel Neji and Tenten's chapters need a little revision. And no, there's no plot. Just a threeshot collection, mostly.**


	2. Neji

**Team Gai: Parents**

**Neji**

Neji was pretty sure that after his dramatic monologue in front of the crowded stadium at the Chuunin Exams, everyone and their auntie knew about his father.

In fact, after getting free food and sweets and compassionate looks from everyone's aunties afterward, he was quite sure there wasn't anyone anywhere who did not know about the Hyuuga's sordid affairs in the area of Hyuuga Hizashi. Everyone knew about his father's tragic murder. Yet no one once seemed to ask about his mother.

It wasn't that Neji was upset about this. After all, his mother's death was not something he had ever wished to really bring up with anyone. And yes, his father's death had impacted him so much more. He didn't have nightmares about his mother, didn't see her corpse with bloody, empty eye sockets reaching out to him, grabbing at his forehead, pushing_ past_ his forehead, squeezing his brain until it burned, causing him to wake up in pain. No, he did not have nightmares about his mother, but he did think of her when he woke up from his nightmares about his father.

His mother had died before his father, by about a year. Neji wasn't above thinking that one reason his father was so willing to die so nobly for the main branch was because he had lost his wife. She had been a wonderful wife, his mother … but very, very sick. Not physically ill, no, though she claimed to be. No, she was sick in the head, making up false illnesses as an excuse to keep herself locked away from the world in her room. Neji had been allowed once a week visitation rights, slipping quietly in to sit next to her. She was nice to him then, slipping him sweets and playing with his hair. But the one time he had gone to her with a problem on a day they weren't supposed to meet, she had broken down. Coughing and crying and curling up in the corner, shouting, "I'm too sick, I'll make you sick!" over and over.

Neji had always wondered if it had been something about him, since his father had been allowed to visit her whenever he wanted. And when they weren't together it was just his mother. He could constantly hear her pleading with herself or with invisible people, or crying, or whimpering so clearly. She would scrabble desperately against the wall as if trying to carve to her freedom. Yes, his mother had been very, very ill. His earliest memory of her was her crying as she held him, the first and last time she'd done so. It was a fond memory, despite it all, and that was one of the reasons he thought of her and that moment after the disturbing nightmares about his father. She had loved him, through the sickness that ate at her mind she had loved him, and had always done the best she could to show him she loved him, all the way until she died.

His earliest memory was of her holding him, so it was only fair that his last memory was of him holding her. It was his weekly visit, and he'd walked in on her lying down as if asleep. Only two things threw it off; the foam collected at the corners of her mouth and the viscous liquid dripping from her eye sockets. She'd taken poison and died, the seal melting out her eyes, but he hadn't known this, only known something had happened to her as he'd clung tightly to her cooling corpse, shouting for help.

Really, it was better that no one asked about his mother. As long as no one questioned to her whereabouts he could easily focus on only the good times, her giggles as she plaited his hair or her melodious voice as she recounted the story of the girl and the thousand paper cranes. But if someone asked, "hey, Neji, where's your mom?" he could only reply "she's dead," since it hurt to think of the poison and her cold body and her empty eye sockets. Though maybe if it was Tenten, or Lee, or even Gai-sensei he could explain a bit more, because if they had stuck with him this long there was no doubt they had to care for him (even if it was just a little.)

**TBC**

**A/N: Of course Neji's is the angstiest. He's the angstiest bishie that ever did angst. Tenten's next!**


	3. Tenten

**Team Gai: Parents**

**Tenten**

Konoha was filled with dramatic back stories; if the word had existed in their language then Konoha nin would be quick to say theirs was a village of angst. But even though the word didn't exist you could still hear the occasional conversation of, "man, we're all screwed up." Because it was true. The life of a ninja seemed to guarantee heartache, and if your family had been ninja as well then too bad for you – you were doubly screwed. Either your parents was murdered or had committed suicide or had disappeared, or had been so tortured into insanity that they were kept locked up and away in a special ward of the hospital. Or your brothers and/or sisters had fallen prey to any of the above. And really, that was just scratching the surface. Sure, there were normal nin, plenty of them, but the ones who were messed up were _majorly_ messed up.

Tenten prided herself as an exception to the rule.

No, not because she had no depressing back-story to traumatize or motivate her; but because her depressing back-story neither traumatized nor motivated her. It was just there, a part of who she was. If an academy sensei tested their info-gathering skills by asking them to trace their family tree as far back as they could, Tenten would scribble "no family to trace" and hand that in. In fact, she had done just that. She hadn't cried into her pillow that night, solemnly fingering a necklace her parents had left with her, because she didn't have a necklace and that sort of drama belonged in one of those silly novels about girls coming into their rightful princess heritage or some other type of nonsense that Neji and Lee liked to read and pretend they didn't.

So yeah, Tenten didn't cry melancholy tears in her heart of hearts as she wondered about the parents she had never known. They had contributed genetic material and at least one of them gave up nine months of her time to create Tenten, and that contribution was the only real connection Tenten had to them. But blood was just blood, and the only reason it would really interest her was if she had a bloodline limit. Which she didn't, so she had never really cared at all about her parents.

As a newborn she had been left on the doorstep of an orphanage. In this aspect Tenten and Lee were very similar; but while Lee at least could easily find out who his parents were if he wanted to Tenten could not. She had been born in a town many countries away, and when the town and its neighbouring villages started to being raided and looted, the villages pooled their resources and sent someone to go hire nin. This person, after getting turned away by some of the other ninja villages, came to Konoha and finally got help. Konoha helped defeat the raiders, and Tenten's orphanage was leveled in the fight, killing all the children and caretakers. By a miracle she had survived, and one of the more soft-hearted kunoichi had taken baby Tenten back to Konoha. There, she looked after Tenten until the girl turned six, at which point she was killed on a mission. She had been closest to a mother Tenten had ever had (but Tenten never called her that), and Tenten greatly admired her courage and skill as a kunoichi, slaying so many enemies before dying in a battle with Kumo.

After her death Tenten had inherited the guardian's small house and a sizable amount of money, enough to keep her going until she started doing her own missions. Six was old enough to look after yourself, most world-weary nin agreed, leaving Tenten to her own devices. And Tenten did not slip into depression because she had no one there to look after her; no, she took this as a valuable life experience and moved on.

In general, moving on was what she was good at. She didn't dwell or mope or ponder or do anything vaguely like pretty much every other nin with a problem. The past was the past, and what mattered was her present. Her skills, her hundred percent accurate aim, her missions. Her, and her team. Neji (who was sort of melodramatic, but he got over it) and Lee (who was just plain _dramatic_, but only really worried about present problems) and Gai-sensei (who was _Dramatic_! and didn't have a single depressing life story to tell; he was always happy). As teams went it wasn't that bad, and although it would require Ibiki-level torture to get her to admit it, they were more than a team for her, more than friends, they were other parts of her she couldn't imagine surviving without.

When you had people like that standing by you everyday, why would you need to ruminate on the past; why would you need a family? Team Gai was better than family, of that much Tenten was sure.

She was also pretty sure the others felt the same way, too.

**the end**

**A/N: Tenten doesn't take any kind of BS, and it's why I love her. And with her ends this story!**


End file.
